Fleeting Benevolence
by fauxPROJECT
Summary: Sakura realizes, she's more of a paradox than the world. Your hands are unearthly cold, nurse. Sakura, Sasuke.


Fleeting Benevolence.  
eclectic electric.

* * *

_Sakura realizes, she's more of a paradox than the world_. ["Your hands are unearthly cold, nurse."

* * *

_un._

Sakura always thought the hospital was cold - frozen, almost in it's atmosphere. But here in this room it's not as cold as she thought - it's getting so _ridiculously hot_. Never did she think sitting in a _freezing_ metal chair next to this bed could be such a sweating breaking activity. Dark blue was never much of a warm color (_so says the color wheel _) but it was like fire in her eyes.

Licking her dry chapped lips she sighs, trying to release the tension. She wants to _scream_ cause her skin is like _the surface of the sun_ right now. She wants to extinguish the flames that _he_was emitting.

She blinks.

She leans forward, chart pressed tightly against her chest, pen in the other hand. With a sigh, she lets her finger tips graze carefully over his pale forward, _her fingertips on fire, sweet fire._

A quick scribble on his chart and she turns away.

"Your hands are unearthly_ cold, nurse_." Mumble.

The door shuts with a lingering, _click._

_deux._

Sakura glances down at him impassively, and just returns his charts. Ink to paper, ink to paper, _repetition_ - it's happening _over and over _again. She lowers her eyes to the blank obsidian ones, gazing towards the ceiling.

"What's_ happening_ to me?"

His voice hoarse from the lack of use. Sakura shifts uncomfortably, she notices that the hospital is a big block of _frozen_ tundra again. She outstretches a hand, green flowing expertly from her hands. All she _knows_ that she doesn't want to _know the things she knows._ She doesn't want to see the things she sees. Yet, she continues to survey his body like _nothing_ was bothering her.

"Well?" Sakura just wants to chuckle smoothly and just say _Impatient as I remember; maybe you haven't changed after all._

He has, so has she. Sakura still pauses to reply. Perhaps she hasn't changed much after all.

Curtly she turns towards the window, placing a stand of pink behind her ear. She has to squint to see through the loud colors blaring in the usual, white crisp hospital room from the sun preparing for it's slumber. She moves casually towards the window, because it felt like the _apocalypse_ would occur if she were to speak. She doesn't want to speak - maybe life would last forever if you stole a moment, never put it back properly.

"The sun will _set_ for _you_."

Sakura pauses and thinks maybe she has changed. She thinks maybe that she doesn't want to_ feel again _yet.

She shuts the blinds with a jerk.

Silence.

_trois._

Sakura stares to the right - while _he_ gazes to the left. Sakura realizes that the hospital is not tundra anymore - it's a cyclone. She has to take his pulse but all she can hear is a familiar, _Th-thump, Th-thump,_ in her own chest that she can't hear anything else. Is this the sound of a heartbreaking?

_What are they going to do with him?_, he asked.

Sighing wistfully, she grasps his wrist trying to get a hold of his pulse. She might as well _appear_ professional.

_Th-ump-th-thump-th-th-thump._ She still can't get her own heart rate to lower to get his.

_They're pushing back the trial two months._, she replied.

Her dainty fingertips levitated over his forehead, green whipping around her palms. Sakura realizes - she feels again. She cries, cries, and god forbid - _cries right in front of him._ What did she feel exactly? Perhaps irony - she didn't know. She feels, but knows no other.

"What are you doing?" So low, a voice so low.

Sakura continues, because something has to give. It's possible that Sakura could play god for once. The puzzle pieces would be hers to place.

"Giving you more _time."_ She's breathless, fingertips continuing their work. It's a storm, the winds are building up their power, it's going round and round and round. A tension that's ready to bust.

"You can't _give_ time." He murmurs,

"Time is but an _illusion._"

And she breathes.

_quatre._

It's crisp in front of the Hokage, Sakura thinks. Crisp, curt. Wait - she pauses - it just feels _simple_.

Sakura glances to the window behind her shishou, rather than directly at her. Because she knows that _she_ knows. She's seeing and knowing.

Sakura fidgets a bit, and begins to wonder when the world is going to collapse on her? Or when Tsunade will _ever_ speak to her after looking at his charts. Disgruntled, the Hokage finally raises her eyes. _It's happening anyways. It's happening anyways..._

"These charts are not excusable, Sakura."

Sakura forgets the polite mannerisms that her mother once taught her. Sakura realizes, she tends to forget things alot more lately.

"There's_ no_ information that we can use."

Sakura knows this. But all she does is stare past the women, disconnected. She begins to wonder when will the sky begin to sink into _darkblue_?

"_He'_s going to _die_ soon anyways." She murmurs. She feels the Hokage's tensed pause.

"He's_ dead_." Sakura sighs and stands. She retrieves her chart and glances off-handedly at it.

_DISPAIRHATEGREIFPAITENCEHATEHATEHATENUMBTEDIOUSGREIFGREEDTIMETIMETIME..._

_LOVE._

Sakura realizes, she's more of a paradox than the world.

_cinq._

Sakura smiles or tries to at least. She feels the corner of her lips tugging slightly but who knows. No one ever knows.

She just fixes on the multiple machines hooked up to _him._ The faint green line, imitating a pulse on the screen.

"There's been no word." Sakura finally replies, crossing her legs,_ scribbling_ on his_ charts_. He'd always ask about _him, him, him._ Execution? Where are they holding him? When will he die? Sakura tries to smile, cause he'll die first, she wants to say. _You'll die before him._

She languidly blinks and looks up at him as he starts to cough and choke on air. She thinks that everything's all right, cause he'll choke on the words and questions he'll never say or ask. _She loves the irony._

"You speak so casually, _Sa-ku-ra_." Smug. Sakura smiles meekly, adjusting a wire to one of the many machines.

"It's simple. Your cells are_ mutating into something..different_." That's what she's convinced herself, _he's no longer what I knew. It's version 2.0, and it's failing._

Silence.

_TEAMSEVEN-KAKASHI-NARUTO-ME-YOU-US._

It lingers in the air.

"Goodnight." Surprisingly, he speaks. Sakura stands up, fixing her crisp white uniform.

"Go."

Sakura obliges.

_six._

She sat comfortable between the two. A mischievous blond, and a calculating grey. The hot ramen rapidly cooling before her.

"The last one, huh?" Sakura smiled as the blond piped up, slurping on his ramen while staring off-handedly to the right.

"I assume so." Drawled the grey. She smiles, and knows. They're leaving for a mission, and while there gone - _there goes Team Seven._ She stays, she has duty, she is a medic - she is witness.

"So, this is goodbye." The blond sighs, scratching his head while fishing something out of his pocket. Sakura licks her lips, as she knows she'll pass on the word.

"This is goodbye." -_forever._ She sighs.

He threw down seven pieces of I.O.Us on the counter.

_sept._

Sakura glances at the machines - and actually _writes_ on his charts. Because the hospital was no longer cold, no longer scolding hot, a frozen tundra, and certainly not a cyclone. It was lukewarm, and radiant in a way.

_Why doesn't it bother you?_, a blonde girl had asked her. Sakura only smiles, cause only she knows. It's something so complex that it's something so _beautiful _ in it's own way.

He rasps under the weight of the tubes connecting his lungs to the outside world. She grazes her finger tips over his face.

His last questions and words were of his brother._ TEAMSEVEN-NARUTO-KAKASHI-ME-YOU-US._ It still lingered distastefully in the air. It was alright, Sakura supposed his _defeat_ was _enough_. She closes her mind, and thinks back.

_It's honestly happening, I'm surprised your taking it well, he sounded so hollow. You're different, he whispered. She smiles, Why should it matter? You don't love me, I can't ask you to stay._

She turns towards the wire; she pauses for a moment.

She grasps his hand; she grasps the wire.

She places a chaste kiss on his lips; she nudges the wire.

She knows why he said Thank you, because she now just wants to say the same. She doesn't cry for herself anymore - she cries _for him, for others._.

She jerks the wire from it's socket.

_Why doesn't it bother you?,_ her blonde friend had asked.

_There's too little to hang onto; too little to rescue.,_ she breathed.

The sun still rises, and she still breathes without him.

_Uchiha Sasuke, deceased.  
_She writes.

_Fini._

* * *

This has been sitting in my finished folder for a little while. Take it as you will and tell me what you think, ask me questions. I was going for the confusion at the beginning, and maybe had the ending wrap up everything. You know, you'll be itching to re-read it knowing what you know. (smirks.) anyways, thanks for reading.

- eclectic electric.


End file.
